Interpreting the River Cafe
A close reading of another iconic caff
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Atmosphere can seem difficult to define or understand, but it is actually rooted in fact. Call a place “buzzy” or “convivial” and you’re really talking about how many people are inside it, and how friendly and lively those people are. Say a restaurant feels “lived-in” and you probably also mean that its interior shows signs of wear.
Hospitality isn’t intangible either. It comes down to interpersonal experience: how a restaurant’s staff interact with you and the type of service they provide. As a new customer, you may be especially attuned to the welcome you receive, because that’s when you need it most. You might measure a place’s hospitality by the way you see others treated as much as by the way you are treated yourself.
A restaurant’s purpose also colours its atmosphere. If it’s upmarket, you may expect one mode of service: attentive, yet delicately restrained. If you spend under £10 and share your table with strangers, you may expect little else than the food you paid for. Both are versions of hospitality, which can take many forms.
At Wong Kei, hospitality is low prices and a free pot of tea. At Scotti’s Snack Bar, it makes itself known through small talk with Al, the proprietor, and his pleasure at seeing you again. I see the River Cafe opposite Putney Bridge as a blend of these two experiences: a public utility, but also somewhere you can feel at home. You are treated with respect, and earn more by going often.
The River Cafe isn’t as well-known as heritage caffs like E Pellicci and Regency Cafe, but it is hardly unsung. To some it is more famous than the 1987 restaurant of the same name a mile and a half upriver – particularly those who support Fulham F.C. As with those other iconic London caffs, I will never tire of it. I also want to understand it better, by looking at it closely from a number of angles.
Materials
The simplest way to make sense of the River Cafe is to look at what it’s made of. That involves noticing the ceiling, and all its reflective white squares. The shiny panels are made from a high-strength coloured glass, often marketed under the name Vitrolite.
Vitrolite’s dated modernity makes me think of brand names like Bacofoil and Brylcreem, as well as businesses Don Draper worked with, such as Relax-a-Cizor and Glo-Coat floor wax. Vitrolite also harks back to a form of advertising that is now dead.
It emerged in the first half of the 20th century, as ad men shifted away from speaking to our needs and started exploiting our unconscious desires. The copy from this 1937 ad captures Vitrolite’s old-timey messaging well:
“The lustrous reflective quality of Vitrolite imparts a distinctive modern character… Being impervious to moisture, it will retain its lustre unimpaired for a lifetime, requiring only occasional wiping with a damp cloth to keep it spotlessly clean and ever new.”
Old pigmented glass gleams all over London, but one of the finest examples is E Pellicci’s custard-coloured sign. It is often a feature of 1930s pub interiors, such as the Rose & Crown and Army & Navy in Stoke Newington.
As with Formica, early 20th century materials like Vitrolite encapsulate the character of Britain’s remaining classic caffs. They used to promise newness, which later transfigured into datedness and sometimes eventually neglect. Now that there are fewer intact historical interiors left, these furnishings have reemerged as a novelty once more.
Ornamentation
Vitrolite is functional, but it has decorative potential too. Reading architecture critic Edwin Heathcote’s work was the first time I became aware of Vitrolite, and began to understand the finer details of why restaurants like the River Cafe are so compelling. In his 2004 book London Caffs, Heathcote describes its interior:
“… the blue decorative wall tiles represent the last gasp of art nouveau influence while the lotus leaf capitals on the cast-iron columns hint at the transition to art deco and the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in the 1920s.”
These ceramic tiles are the River Cafe’s most striking feature, coloured in cream and cerulean blue. They would define the dining room even if they weren’t embellished, but because of their drooping, garlanded curves, they stand out. I can’t name another caff with tiles like these.
The River Cafe’s tiles are older than its flooring and chairs, as Heathcote points out. I also learned recently that these premises haven’t always been a caff. When I asked one of the women behind the counter how old it was, she answered, “as a cafe?” She then told me it used to be a branch of Express Dairy, and had been a caff for around 80 years, but in her family for 40. As with Scotti’s Snack Bar, this is a space that more than one Italian family has made their own.